I noticed a pesky little worm today. One of those that tend to hide underneath rocks in damp forests, in shadowy places. It can be represented by the expression “I’ve done my best”. I never realised how uncomfortable that declaration always made me feel. Today I want to shine a light on this maggot that was lurking underneath my awareness threshold.

Why does it matter?

There has been quite a few times where I did not reach a most desired goal. In all possible areas of life. Sure, many other factors and circumnstances came into play at different points in time, but how many times could I claim, “well, at least I’ve done my best”? Very few.

And only now I realised how uncomfortable that has always made me feel. It is a feeling of being inappropriate, some sort of shame or disgust, targeted at myself. The explanation is rather straightforward: “effort” is one of my core values. When I talk about hard work but I observe that I am not walking that talk, I become aware of my own hypocrisy.

How does it work?

I believe we should make a clear distinction between acute cases that can be labeled as “executive dysfunction” and other less severe cases. There is plenty of research and studies looking deeper into executive dysfunction and some of its possible causes:

  • Nervous system disregulation
  • Fear of failure / fear of making mistakes
  • Self doubt
  • Exhaustion / burnout
  • Lack of interest

The list goes on but these five items are some the ones that have been more relevant in my life so far. As much as my case might not be as critical as those of people dealing with ADHD or depression, I still see value in looking into this topic. “Not being able to properly function in society” is different from “I am not going the extra mile”, but I do suspect that these two topics are intimately connected. Self doubt can be paralysing, but even in its softer version, it has prevented me from giving my best to a certain task or project: when the outcome is inevitably judged by others, if it is found lacking, my ego can always rest under the protection that “I didn’t put all my effort, so it is okay that the result is not perfect”.

What are its consequences?

Procrastination, avoidance, analysis paralysis, and the build up of even more anxiety within my system, nurturing a negative feedback cycle where I am overwhelmed by my worries. When this becomes extreme, it manifestes as a dysregulation of the nervous system that made me irresponsible, and also made me look as if I don’t care to other people.

The three most challenging consequences connected to that have been:

  • The adoption of unhealthy coping mechanisms and addictive behaviours
  • The accumulation of the feeling of shame and guilt, something reinforces self doubt
  • The increasing distance between me and my goals – as some of them definitely require me to do my best for prolonged periods of time

Going deeper into this topic could easily become a PhD thesis or a book. That is not my purpose for this text. My goal today is twofold:

  1. To make a public commitment for my own self, of changing things. This blog post is already “me taking action and creating something”
  2. Share some resources that have been helping me in my journey

I also want to avoid the mistake of overanalysing myself and not taking action. In case you are also struggling with similar issues, besides having regular high quality therapy, the following books have been helpful to me:

Taking Action

I recently became more deliberate in striking a balance between self-reflection and taking action, between introspection and movement. I do feel the need of understanding why I behave in certain ways, particularly when there is dissonance between my behaviour and my values or principles, but accurate perception is only half of the equation. Once we have an accurate perception of the problem, we also need to do something about it.

I will go deeper into possible courses of action in a future post. For now, I am content that I have written this.

Image credits:

Image "Brown ram on green grass during daytime": photo by Cédric Streit on Unsplash